MAHB’s passenger traffic up 5.6% in April 2019
Monday, May 13th, 2019
at , News

Its international traffic registered a 6.5% growth, while domestic segment increased by 4.7%

By SHAHEERA AZNAM SHAH / Pic By MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) network of airports, including the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) in Istanbul, posted a 5.6% year-on-year (YoY) growth in passenger movements to 11.7 million travellers in April 2019.

Its international traffic registered a 6.5% growth with 5.6 million travellers, while the domestic segment increased by 4.7% to 6.1 million passengers.

As for its Malaysia’s operation, MAHB posted a 6.6% growth YoY with 8.8 million in its passenger movements for April this year.

“Malaysia’s international segment registered 2.5% growth with 4.4 million travellers, while the domestic segment grew 11.2% with 4.3 million passengers,” MAHB said in a Bursa Malaysia listing last Friday.

The passenger movements at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s (KLIA) Main Terminal grew 2.9%, while the KLIA2 posted a growth of 4.2%.

On the local operation, air travels to Asean and non-Asean destination grew 4.3% and 0.8% respectively with 2.2 million passengers.

“The overall aircraft movements at KLIA increased by 2.1%. The international aircraft at KLIA increased by 0.4% while the domestic aircraft grew 5.9%.

“Overall average load factor was 79.1% in April 2019, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to April 2018,” it said.

For its operation at Istanbul SGIA, MAHB said the passenger movements grew 2.5% to 2.9 million travellers.

Istanbul SGIA’s international segment grew 24.3% with 1.2 million passengers, while the domestic passengers decreased by 8.5% to 1.7 million.

For its entire network, MAHB’s aircraft movements increased by 2.2%. Its international and domestic aircraft movements rose 3.9% and 1.1% respectively.

MAHB said the higher traffic recorded between January and April signals a new level of air travel for the airport operator.

“MAHB network of airports’ overall passenger movements of 5.6% over April 2019 is a credible improvement in performance.

“The absolute numbers in passenger movements registered by the network of airports in the last four months show a shift of traffic to a new higher level,” it said.

Moving forward, the airport operator said the higher momentum is expected to sustain in the short to medium term, as a result of the strong demand in the domestic sector.

“Malaysia’s 6.6% growth was strongly driven by the domestic sector that was previously subdued by airlines capacity shift to international sector.

“This higher domestic growth momentum is expected to sustain in the short to medium term,” it said.

For its operation in Istanbul, MAHB said the passenger movements will continue to be driven by the international segment as it has been registering a double-digit growth since the beginning of the year.

“Istanbul SGIA passenger movements continued to be driven by the international sector with a double-digit growth registered since January 2019 and more than 20% since March 2019.

“Ariana Afghan Airlines Co Ltd has commenced operations twice-weekly operations from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Pobeda Airlines has increased the Vnukovo, Moscow operations from daily to twice daily in April 2019.

MAHB said the slowing down of domestic passenger movements was a result of Pegasus Airlines’ route restructuring to expand its international operations.